Microsoft has created the Coco Framework, which is designed to advance enterprise adoption of blockchain technology and a sort of user democracy in defining it. It will be introduced next year on GitHub. A technical white paper and demonstration is available.

Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community with his email newsletters for 16 years. And he has been covering this market through print publications for 24 years, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the Editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and continues to address that as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant.

The software company says when integrated with blockchain networks, Coco supports more than 1,600 transactions per second and "Easily manages data confidentiality without sacrificing performance". Coco also provides comprehensive, distributed governance model for blockchain networks. It establishes a network constitution and allows members to vote on all terms and conditions governing the consortium. "Microsoft is committed to bringing blockchain to the enterprise," said Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer of Azure at Microsoft. "We have listened to the needs of our customers and the blockchain community and are bringing foundational functionality with the Coco Framework." Coco will be compatible with any ledger protocol and operate in the cloud and on premises, on any operating system and hypervisor that supports a compatible TEE. Initial implementations will include R3 Corda, Intel Hyperledger Sawtooth, J.P. Morgan Quorum and Ethereum.

Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community with his email newsletters for 16 years. And he has been covering this market through print publications for 24 years, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the Editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and continues to address that as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant.

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The Editor

Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community with his email newsletters for 10 years. And he has been covering this market through print publications for 18 years, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the Editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and continues to address that as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant.